He suffered a brain death in a ski accident and his parents now want to preserve their sperm to "continue the lineage"

Peter Zhu, a 21-year-old military cadet belonging to a Sino-US family, fell victim to skis on February 23 and was pronounced a brain dead four days later. but his body remained alive since he was a donor of organs.

March 5, his parents They have been authorized by a judge to carry out a concrete controversy which, in their opinion, would allow them to maintain the family lineage: extracting and preserving the sperm of their child.

Zhu had fractured the spine in the accident occurred on the Victor Constant runway in West Point, New York State. that prevented oxygen from reaching his brain and causing his brain death, pointed out the Washington Post.

The young cadet was found unconscious and then taken to the Westchester Medical Center for emergency treatment.

Against the clock, her parents asked a court order to recover sperm from the body before organ removals, stating inter alia that the The dream of the young man was to have children.

"Without extracting semen from Peter's body we will never be able to help fulfill his dream of bringing a child to the world ", The parents noted in a memoir, which was quickly accepted by the judge.

The magistrate, John P. Colangelo, ordered the health staff to extract the semen and send it to a bank chosen by the parents for it to be kept waiting for one Final decision of the New York State Supreme Court, which will begin to deal with the issue on March 21, about what it can do.

According to several media, The intervention took place last Friday, March 1, a few hours after the family's request. Zhu was later buried on Thursday 7th at West Point Cemetery.

Among the other arguments, the parents pointed out the personal and cultural importance it has for them to continue their lineage, since their son was the only male of their generation in the whole family, partly because of a child's policy of China.

Following the tradition, In China, only men can transmit the family name and, in this case, all of Zhu's uncles had girls.

"Our family was torn apart this week by the loss of our beloved son." We now ask the court do not further devastate our family by eliminating the possibility of preserving a part of our child that could last "they said in their application.

Zhu, whose family is of Chinese origin but live in Concord, California, He was studying his last semester at the prestigious West Point Military Academy in New Yorek and was about to graduate in May.

The recovery of corpse sperm is a technique practiced for four decadesbut usually the person who asks for it is the wife of the deceased. The hospital then applied for a court order.

A debate that has lasted for decades

The practice, developed by American urologist Cappy M. Rothman, raises fierce ethical controversies about the idea of ​​raising children with the genetic material of deceased parents.

In 1999, a woman became the first in US history to give birth to a child after being fertilized with the sperm of her deceased husband., as AP reported at the time.

Immediately, a legal, ethical, and academic discussion was initiated on the implications of the event, who should keep the sperm, how to use it to generate, and the need to secure consent for sperm preservation. , in the same way as for the donation of organs.

In the case of Zhu, his Parents mentioned many references in their son's life about wanting to become a father from time to time and providing them with grandchildren. although the possibility of sperm preservation was not discussed or there was written or verbal consent for the procedure.

In addition, Zhu's parents insisted on the "cultural" reasons for doing so, which seem to have little to do with the young man's wishes.

We did not know how they expected to have a grandson with his son's sperm. Although there is the antecedent of 2009, when a woman from the state of Texas hired a woman to fertilize with the sperm of her son, killed in a fight in a bar.

Inconsistent practices in hospitals

"One of the questions that can arise is" how many babies can you father? "" Asked Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics of the Department of Population Health of New York University, who worked with about 30 families who managed to preserve the sperm of their loved ones.

"And if you decide you do not want it anymore, can you give that sperm to someone else?" he asked, according to News of the day

Caplan ensures that there is still a huge inconsistency in the requirements of different hospitals to perform the practice and advises those who approve this procedure to let it settle in life.

In addition, he proposes that hospitals agree to keep sperm for three months, after which loved ones, calmer after the pain of the loss of a loved one They can make better decisions about the fate of this genetic material.

For its part, the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine said in a 2018 article that posthumous extraction of sperm and ovaries is "Justified ethics if there is a written authorization". If this is not the case, it should only be done at the request of one of the spouses or partners, according to the committee.